Marcus Sarjeant

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Marcus Simon Sarjeant (born 1964) is notable for firing six blank shots at Queen Elizabeth II as she rode down The Mall to the Trooping the Colour ceremony in 1981.

1 Background
2 Attack
3 Release
4 External links

[edit] Background

Sarjeant, who was from Capel-le-Ferne, near Folkestone, Kent, went to Astor Secondary School in Dover. He was a member of the Scouts, becoming local patrol leader before leaving to join the Air Training Corps in 1978. In the ATC, Serjeant won a marksman's badge, and he owned an air rifle. After leaving school in May 1980 with seven CSE passes, Sarjeant applied to join the Royal Marines but was unable to accept the discipline and left after three months, claiming that officers bullied him. He also tried to join the Army but stayed only for two days of an induction course.

After failed applications to join the police and the fire service He worked at a zoo and at an arts centre in Folkestone. Under the Youth Training Scheme he worked at a youth centre in Hawkinge. Friends reported that in October 1980 Sarjeant joined the Anti Royalist Movement. At the time of his attack on the Queen he was unemployed and living with his mother (his father was working abroad).

He tried unsuccessfully to find ammunition for his father's ·455 revolver, and to get a gun licence of his own; he joined a local gun club. Through mail order he paid £66.90 for two Jackal Python starting pistols, which looked like Colt revolvers. In the run-up to the annual Trooping the Colour ceremony, Sarjeant sent letters to two magazines, one of which included a picture of him with his father's gun. He also sent a letter to Buckingham Palace which read "Your Majesty. Don't go to the Trooping the Colour ceremony because there is an assassin set up to kill you, waiting just outside the palace". The letter arrived on June 16.

[edit] Attack

On June 13, 1981, Sarjeant joined the crowds for Trooping the Colour, finding a spot near the junction between The Mall and Horseguards Avenue. When the Queen came past riding her 19-year-old horse Burmese, Serjeant quickly fired six shots from his starting revolver. The horse was momentarily startled but the Queen brought him under control; she was unharmed. Other members of the crowd, police and troops guarding the ceremony quickly subdued Sarjeant, who told them "I wanted to be famous. I wanted to be a somebody". At the time of his arrest he had on him a tape recording in which Sarjeant said he intended to attack the Queen again and would use a loaded weapon.

In questioning, Sarjeant said he had been inspired by the assassination of John Lennon in December 1980 and the attempts on the life of President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II. In particular he noted the ease with which Mark David Chapman had become famous after killing John Lennon. A friend said that at the time of John Hinckley, Jr.'s attempt on the life of President Reagan, Sarjeant had said "I would like to be the first one to take a pot shot at the Queen". The police found that Sarjeant had written "I am going to stun and mystify the world. I will become the most famous teenager in the world." Investigations by psychiatrists found that Sarjeant did not have any abnormalities within the Mental Health Act.

Sarjeant was brought to trial before the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Lane, on September 14. He was charged with "wilfully discharging a revolver near the person of the Queen with intent to alarm her, contrary to section 2 of the Treason Act 1842"; Sarjeant pleaded guilty and a statement on his behalf was read to the court in which he declared "I am extremely sorry for any distress I may have caused the Queen and members of the Royal Family .. I am a loyal British citizen who has no interest or sympathy whatever in any anti-British movement". Lord Lane, sentencing him to five years' imprisonment, said that "the public sense of outrage must be marked. You must be punished for the wicked thing you did". Sarjeant appealed against the length of the sentence but the appeal was refused.

[edit] Release

After three years in jail which were mostly spent at Grendon psychiatric prison, Sarjeant was released in October 1984 at the age of 20. He changed his name and began a new life.